history

In a comment a while back, Elena pointed out that Diego Velázquez’s painting “Infante Felipe Próspero” (from 1659) provides a good example of how pink was acceptable for males to wear…as were, in some cases, dresses, which the young prince is wearing:

Elena says,

…until the late 1700s little boys would wear dresses or petticoats for as long as they could until they could dress as miniature adults…This was mainly for ease of bodily functions.

Of course, today most parents would be appalled at the idea of dressing toddler boys in dresses–dresses with frills and ribbons, at that.

The painting “Pope Innocent X,” also by Velázquez (1650) shows the Pope in light pink clothing:

Both images found at the National Gallery’s Velázquez page.

You might also check out Kent State University Museum’s Centuries of Childhood exhibit for examples of how children’s clothing has changed over time.

Thanks for the tip, Elena!

Ben O. brought our attention to this set of vintage ads (from Found in Mom’s Basement) that all use images of Black male servants.

This one for Cream of Kentucky bourbon was illustrated by Norman Rockwell. I can’t quite figure out what the expression on the Black servant’s face is supposed to convey:

Miller Beer:

Cream of Wheat:

Glider shaving cream:

Part of the text reads, “Why did Grand-dad so often take the trouble to get water from the rain barrel for his shave?” For some reason I have a feeling it wasn’t Grand-dad getting the water.

Thanks, Ben O.!

I can safely say that most readers of this blog probably think that broiled Spam + canned peaches looks and sounds unappetizing.  But this is only one of many creative food combinations that appeared in advertisers’ recipes and cookbooks during the 1950s and 1960s. Here’s another:

Why, yes, those are baked beans on pizza.

While there are plenty of interesting angles on these old recipes, from their use of color to their emphasis on saving money, I’d like to bring up the way that modern writers treat recipes from this period. James Lileks, for example, has an entire site, The Gallery of Regrettable Foods, which eventually spawned a book covering much of the same material.

As the index page to The Gallery of Regrettable Foods says,

What were they thinking? How did they eat this bilge? Good questions, but you won’t find them answered here. This is a simple introduction to poorly photographed foodstuffs and horrid recipes. It’s a wonder anyone in the 40s, 50s and 60s gained any weight; it’s a miracle that people didn’t put down their issue of Life magazine with a slight queasy list to their gut, and decide to sup on a nice bowl of shredded wheat and nothing else.

This [admittedly funny] type of snarky commentary has inspired other Web sites, such as Wendy McClure’s mockery of 1970s Weight Watchers recipe cards. The vintage_recipes community on LiveJournal frequently contains less formal versions of the snark.

Such modern commentary erases much of the historical significance and interest of these recipes. The radio program Engines of Our Ingenuity recently commented on the cookbook in episode 2403, with a special focus on recipes such as those shown above. As the transcript of episode 2403 suggests, many of these recipes relied on canned, gelled or prepared foods, highlighting both the Atomic Age’s fascination with technologically advanced cookery. But the mockery is way more popular these days.

These images could be used in a discussion about how “retro” images are regularly reappropriated as “cool” with little regard for their historical context.

If there are any method-heads out there who want to tell me this isn’t as bad as it looks, I’m ready to listen.

Actually, I just thought of one.  The line looks like it drops to the bottom, but the scale starts at 61 and ends at 65.  Even still… method-heads?

(Found here, via Alas!)

Via Slate.

Last year, Fender Guitars unveiled the new Joe Strummer Signature Series ™, a pre-stressed replica of Strummer’s beloved guitar: a 1966 Fender Telecaster, which he played in the 101ers, the Clash, and with the Mescaleros from 1975 until his death in 2005. Here’s Strummer with his guitar:

Here are some screenshots of the replica from the website:

Some of the items available for customization:

A customized version:

Let’s just pause for a moment and appreciate the irony of that one. (For those of you with little knowledge of the Clash, let’s just say that they were pretty much the exact opposite of this guitar, ideologically speaking.)

According to Fender’s write-up, this guitar is cool because “All his life, [Strummer] vigorously championed individuality, self-expression and change-tenets often reflected in the constantly altered look of his favorite instrument – his Telecaster” and this guitar was built “to celebrate Strummer’s fierce sense of individuality.” Buy the thing and you can champion individuality and self-expression just like Joe! Well. . .just like Joe and the 1,499 other folks who buy the limited edition with the stickers.

But perhaps a more interesting question is this: does any of this affect what you can actually do with it? The kinds of songs you could write with it? The kinds of shows you could play? It probably wouldn’t, or at least no more so than any other Telecaster would by virtue of its technical specifications. But put it in the context of a room full of other musicians, who tend to hold strong ideas about the art/commerce relationship, and you may find yourself the proud owner of a Fender Stigma-caster, depending on the room and the musicians.

On the other hand, Strummer – an artist whose work often wrangled around the intersection of art and commerce  – was by many accounts a complex person who disdained orthodoxy in all its forms. He might have been tickled pink by the tensions and artistic possibilities inherent in such a symbolically loaded guitar. The Clash did, after all, write songs about their recording contracts. (Also, the surviving Strummers have to eat and how they manage their husband’s/father’s estate is no business of mine.)

What else can we unpack from this guitar? Pretty much the history of modernity. You start with “the guitar” – an instrument traditionally produced by artisans called luthiers. But this particular style of guitar – the Fender Telecaster – is the first commercially successful mass-produced solidbody electric guitar. (Henry Ford:Driving::Leo Fender:Rocking.) Introduced in 1950 as the Esquire,* renamed after slight design changes and then a lawsuit re: the name Broadcaster being property of Gretsch Instruments, assembled on a factory line from mass-produced interchangeable parts, sold in stores and catalogs, heard most often via media and broadcast for most music consumers, the 1966 Fender Telecaster is truly a Modern guitar.

But this particular model of the genus Telecaster is Late Modernity to its elusive core:  a simulacrum of a particular instrument that trades on symbols of authenticity. With its “road worn” look, its namesake’s reputation and artistic output, and the genre of music it evokes, it’s a composite replica of the idea of the guitar wielded by a working musician known to most of us as mass-mediated collective representation. It’s also worth remembering that the idea of “Joe Strummer” is itself an elusive symbol, one of a number of names and personas adopted by John Graham Mellor over the course of his lifetime, that has now taken on a life of its own.

Sure, there are more properly postmodern guitars out there, but they all belong to Sonic Youth.

* Technically speaking, the Esquire and the Broadcaster/Telecaster are different guitars – the former has one pickup and the latter two, and there are some refinements to the design – basically, the Telecaster is the “finished” product. But to the average eye – and especially so when they debuted, given their shared differences from 99% of the other guitars out there at the time –  they’re pretty much the same guitar. [Editor’s note: Potts can really geek out sometimes, as evidenced in this footnote.]

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Brady Potts is an entirely awesome sociologist specializing in soc of culture, co-editor of the book The Civic Life of American Religion, and the person we can always count on to geek out about “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and the Drive-By Truckers.

If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our Guidelines for Guest Bloggers.

For other examples of the commodification of sub- (counter?) cultures, see here and here.

Wheelchair use equated with terminal misery (click to enlarge):

Wheelchair use will keep you from EVER having fun. So implies this ad for Goodyear Tires from the August 2, 1937 issue of Life. Everyone looks depressed about the fact that the boy’s in a wheelchair, from the boy himself to his sister and even the dog. I’d be kind of depressed too if I were teetering on the edge of a porch [notice that Sis has one leg up on a step] without a guard rail. This image could be used in a discussion of how perceptions of persons with disabilities have changed over the years…and also how they have stayed the same [witness the stubborn popularity of “wheelchair-bound” as a descriptor for wheelchair users].

Many of you may have seen the image below. It compares the 2004 to the 2008 vote and shows, by color, how much more Democratic (blue) or Republican (red) each county leaned in 2008. In essence, compared to 2004, in this election Democrats increased the proportion of the vote that they received in most counties.

You may not have seen, however, this next image. This next image shows the same data but compares 1992 to 2008. Looking across those sixteen years it is clear that, while this last election may have looked good for Democrats, the last five have moved the country significantly to the right. If you are a Democrat, then, this election is one step forward after 10 steps back. And, if you are a Republican, it may very well be a very small setback.

(Data from the New York Times; images found here.)